CES 2013: UHD Screens, All-LED HDTV Lineup at Vizio's Showroom

Vizio showed off several new HDTVs at its showroom at the Wynn, including an ultra high-definition upgrade to its flagship XVT line.

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Vizio doesn't have a booth at CES, but that doesn't mean it isn't in Las Vegas this week. The company set up a showroom of its upcoming products at the Wynn, and I toured it for a look at the future of the once-budget-brand HDTV manufacturer.

Like nearly every other HDTV company, Vizio is embracing ultra high-definition (UHD, also known as 4K) video. This year, it's upgrading its entire XVT line of high-end HDTVs to be UHD screens. Of course, this probably means they won't actually ship until the end of the year, and pricing information hasn't been announced (but will likely be expensive, compared to previous XVT models), but it shows an impressive commitment to the technology.

Vizio showed off a massive UHD TV in its showroom, playing footage from Rise of the Guardians in uncompressed UHD video straight from DreamWorks. Even on an 80-inch screen the footage was incredibly crisp. Seeing it next to a 1080p HDTV of a similar size feels very much the same as seeing a 40-inch 1080p HDTV next to a 40-inch 720p HDTV. Once you can compare them, the difference is unmistakable. Unfortunately, the video wasn't particularly smooth. The Vizio representative I spoke with said the video was intentionally slowed down to show detail, but blur between frames makes me question if there are still a few kinks to be worked out in playing UHD video.

Video playback is a bigger problem than the screen itself, because there still isn't a standard for UHD media. DreamWorks gave Vizio rendered, uncompressed footage of the movie in UHD so they could show it, but there's no consistent way to get UHD content as a consumer. Users who buy Sony's high-end UHDTV get a media server with ten movies in UHD as part of their $25,000 bundle, and YouTube has some limited UHD content, but that's it. Blu-ray can't readily handle it, video streaming requires a huge amount of bandwidth, and the only broadcasting has been done in limited tests in Japan. Even though Vizio might ship UHDTVs by the end of the year, I'm not sure there'll be much to watch on them without upconverting 1080p video.

Besides UHD/4K video, Vizio showed off a glasses-free 3D screen that uses new technology to avoid the headache-inducing double images of glasses-free 3D displays like the Nintendo 3DS (and the few glasses-free 3D HDTVs I saw last year at CES). The screen uses a lenticular technology (those ridges you see on comic book holograms) to separate the picture into two at certain "sweet spots," like other glasses-free 3D screens. However, it completely flattens the picture outside of those sweet spots, so you don't see any double images.

The headache-reducing aspect of the technology worked like magic, and I didn't see any ghosting or flipped 3D channels. The 3D, however, didn't seem quite as magical. I saw a gentle 3D effect in the sweet spots, but it wasn't nearly as pronounced as the 3DS's screen or the effect seen with 3D glasses. It was 3D I had to use my imagination to really grasp, and the lack of ghosting, while saving me a headache, meant it was hard to find the sweet spot from which to see the 3D, and offered little frame of reference that I was looking at it from the best angle. The screen also showed a slight graininess because of the lenticular coating, giving just the barest sense of ridged texture across it.

Glasses-free 3D won't be coming from Vizio any time soon. Unlike the UHD XVT screens, the glasses-free 3D screen was an early prototype, and won't see a retail release until at least 2014. That gives Vizio plenty of time to perfect the technology.

Vizio also showed off its more conventional HDTVs at the showroom, and while they seemed generally like slight upgrades and general iterations, I noticed an interesting trend: none of them were CCFL. Lower-end Vizio HDTVs have used cold cathode fluorescent lamps instead of LEDs to light their screens in the past. Now, every new Vizio HDTV uses LED lighting. The budget-priced HDTVs still aren't as thin and sleek as higher-end screens, but LED lighting means they can last longer and consume less energy. We could be seeing the end of CCFLs, which seem to be going the way of the cathode ray tube.

Will Greenwald has been covering consumer technology for more than six years, and has served on the editorial staffs of CNET.com, Sound & Vision, and Maximum PC. Since graduating from Syracuse University in 2005, Will has been an active technology journalist both online and in print. His work and analysis has been seen in GamePro, Tested.com, Geek.com, and several other publications. He currently covers consumer electronics in the PCMag.com labs, focusing on Blu-ray players, set-top boxes, and other home theater equipment.
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